CASS LAKE — Can something weighing a fraction of a gram carry a profound impact?
It certainly can.
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Manoomin, commonly known as wild rice, is a cultural, economic and spiritual cornerstone for Anishinaabe communities. However, there was a decrease in harvest production this season due to unpredictable weather patterns and ongoing environmental concerns.
This season, marked by an unusually warm winter and heavy rains in June, ricers struggled to match their usual harvest haul. Traditionally growing in shallow waters of lakes and rivers, manoomin depends on specific environmental conditions to survive. A combination of erratic weather patterns and concerns of growing climate concerns has led this harvest to take a significant dip.
While the recent announcement of a has generated a buzz of excitement and the promise of new jobs, there remains a lot to learn from this wild rice season and its implications for the future of ricing.
A warm winter and rainy summer
Cold, snowy winters provide ice cover for rice beds, which much of the Northland went without last winter. The warmer-than-usual season exposed rice beds to the elements, weakening the harvest before summer began.
“Wild rice actually likes harsh winters, especially heavy ice cover and snowpack on top of the ice,” said Raining White, assistant manager for the Leech Lake Band's Resource Management Plants Program. “There was hardly any ice out there (on the water).”
Just as the rice was recovering from an unusually warm winter, a wet and rainy spring added further complications.
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“The plant is completely underwater for a while … then as it grows, it goes into what they call a floating leaf stage where the rice will stand up, and then it'll have its leaf or its stalk be floating on the water for a while until it gets enough energy to stand up,” White explained. “This is usually about June, maybe July even. When it’s floating like that it’s very sensitive to water level changes.”
Manoomin requires shallow, stable water levels to grow effectively. Excessive rainfall led to higher water levels in many lakes and rivers — meaning plants were uprooted.
“In June, we had all that rain right away,” White said. “A lot of people are thinking that the rain increased water levels and uprooted (the rice) when it was in that floating leaf stage. It won't re-root itself — it dies. Too much rain pulls the root up, and then the roots can’t replant.”
White noted that he wasn’t too discouraged by this season because of the cyclical nature of manoomin. He commented the boom and bust cycles of wild rice can be unpredictable, and that perhaps this was a bust season in addition to the unusual weather.
“The rice itself is naturally cyclical, so it'll have boom and bust years naturally,” White said. “It could be a combination of that rain, and then the rice was just not at that part of the cycle where it was going to be a boom year … maybe it was naturally a bust year. I think that combined created less yield than a lot of people would like to see.”
Climate influences
White mentioned that the ongoing environmental concerns weigh heavily on the Anishinaabe. The shifts in temperature and rainfall may point to a larger concern.
“The decrease in production may not be directly linked to climate, such as the temperature and rainfall, but there are factors that are influenced by climate that are then influencing rice,” he said.
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White noted simple yet meaningful habits that people can practice as they go on the lakes and rivers of northern Minnesota: check for invasive species on your boat, don’t cast fishing lines into rice beds, don’t drive through rice beds and try to minimize water pollution.
Though not a climate scientist, White stated that all indications suggest manoomin won’t adapt to warmer temperatures, a shift linked to climate change.
“I would say by looking at climate models and the warmer temperatures, manoomin is not going to do too well in a warmer environment," he added.
'It feeds the spirit'
Harvesting manoomin has more depth than simply gathering a crop; wild rice serves as a cultural cornerstone for the Anishinaabe people.
“We use it in a lot of our cultural ceremonies … they say your first food should be wild rice and your last food should be wild rice,” White said. “It's so centralized in our culture and our spiritual practices — it really brings us together.”
For the Anishinaabe, ricing on the water deepens the spiritual connection with their ancestors; the Anishinaabe are the spiritual caretakers of the land and the practice of harvesting manoomin feeds the spirit.
“Some people have traditional areas where they go year after year, and where their grandparents went,” White said. “My family likes to rice a certain lake where my grandma riced. There's something so beautiful and powerful about that … there’s something special about being out there — it feeds the spirit in a good way.”
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White commented that he could visualize his ancestors harvesting from the same rice bed as him when he was ricing this past season.
“And that's part of the spirituality of it … when I'm out there ricing, I can imagine my ancestors and my relatives doing the same exact thing in the same exact rice bed,” he added. “There's something really powerful about that.”
Like many practices in the Anishinaabe culture, tradition, skills and knowledge are passed down from each generation.
“I never got to rice with my grandma physically, but I learned how to rice from her, because she taught my dad how to rice, and my dad taught me,” White said. “So, I give all credit to my grandma, because she's the one that had that knowledge, and she would probably have given that credit to someone else.”
‘An economic boost’
White shared insight on the significant role that manoomin plays in the overall economy of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.
“We bought 142,000 pounds of green rice, which is what you would gather right off the lake. I think a normal average year is like 200,000 to 250,000, somewhere in there, so this year we were below average,” White said. “The Band buys it from ricers to process and we sell it as our packaged rice.”
White observed that the drop in production becomes evident once the numbers are calculated, emphasizing that a successful harvest has a significant impact, as wild rice is a crucial staple for their economy.
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“We’re paying $7 a pound … so, you do the math and that's still three-quarters of a million dollars,” White said. “Most of that is going back into Band members' pockets. So, that's right before school and before winter — it’s an economic boost.”
The harvesting season from July to late August brings a lively, cheerful atmosphere out on the water.
“You see all these boats, or all these trucks with canoes and their push-pulls coming off and it's a happy time — this is our favorite time of the year,” White said. “And then ecologically it’s not just food for us, but for the ducks and it’s habitat for the fish. We don’t separate ourselves from the natural world, we’re part of that cycle. It’s the philosophy we’ve been taught to share that rice with our non-human relatives, our non-human beings out there.”
With this foundational aspect of their identity, the Anishinaabe want to ensure the practice remains for future generations.
“People say that anywhere there's wild rice, you'll find Anishinaabe — you’ll find our people,” White said. “And so, it's important in that sense … what would happen if the rice disappeared … who would we be as a people?”
White explained that despite this season’s low haul and ongoing environmental concerns, there are exciting developments on the horizon for the tribe.
Securing a grant
Sept. 24 marked a significant milestone for the Leech Lake Band that is bound to change its wild rice production for the better.
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U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announced that the Department’s Economic Development Administration would be awarding a $3.6 million grant to the Leech Lake Band to support the tribe’s wild rice production industry.
“The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe is proud to receive the Economic Development Administration’s support for our wild rice processing facility,” Leech Lake Tribal Development Planner Gavin Herrera said in the announcement. “This $3.6 million grant is a significant investment in our tribe’s efforts to strengthen and grow the wild rice industry, which is a cornerstone of our culture, economy and traditions.”
The grant will fund the construction of a 6,100-square-foot rice processing facility on tribal land, providing the capability to process manoomin locally and creating 15 new jobs, according to grantee estimates.
“The new processing plant will enable us to manage the production of our commercially produced agricultural product,” Herrera said. “It reinforces our commitment to preserving our cultural heritage and increasing sovereignty over our natural resources for future generations.”
White added that the ability to process the rice within the community would keep dollars internally and give the tribe control of the entire ricing process.
“With this plant, we can keep that money within our own community. … Keeping those dollars internally within the reservation is a huge deal,” he said. “It also lets us control the quality of the rice; every aspect from start to finish now will be in the hands of Leech Lake, which is super awesome.”
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